


No Accidents

by thedevilchicken



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men: The Animated Series
Genre: Angst, Antagonism, Developing Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Fighting, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, MacGuffins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 12:11:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10100036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: The first time, it was an accident. And the second. And the third.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rosencrantz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosencrantz/gifts).



> Based in a sort of weird amalgamation of comics and cartoon canon. Logan is definitely _not_ Hugh Jackman here, and Remy is _not_ Taylor Kitsch, unless you're imagining a tall Kitsch and a short Jackman!

The first time, it was an accident. 

Everyone who's anyone knows the cajun's got a mouth on him about the size of Louisiana and sometimes he likes to wind it up and let it run. That was the reason it happened, way back when, or at least Logan likes to think so, 'cause he was tired and he was antsy and there was no goddamned beer in the whole damn mansion and sure, so it wasn't Gambit's fault Logan had drunk his whole supply and hadn't replaced it, or that they were living in a _school_ so they didn't exactly keep a ready supply of liquor on hand anyway. But it sure was Gambit's fault that he didn't know when to shut the hell up and in the end, after Hank and One-Eye and all the rest had long since hit the sack and left them there alone, Gambit was _still_ talking. He was lounging there all spread out on the couch like he owned the joint, filling the rec room up with chatter as the cheesy horror flick's credits rolled and no matter how hard he'd scowled at it all night, Logan's big glass of lukewarm apple juice hadn't even managed to turn into hard cider, let alone beer. 

"Say, does your mouth ever stop flapping?" Logan asked, interrupting Gambit's flow pretty abruptly. 

Gambit cocked his head with a faint, amused smile. He was still playing with a deck of cards, shuffling them in both hands with a papery thwap-thwap-thwap like that crap didn't get just as annoying as his big-mouthed yapping did. 

"From time to time, mon ami," he said, with that same infuriating smile on his damn infuriating face, "but on nights like this, with friends--"

Which was, of course, the moment Logan chose to launch himself at him, 'cause it was clear the tone-deaf SOB really couldn't take a hint. And that meant Logan had to take matters into his own inimitable hands. 

It really was an accident. He didn't mean to scatter half of Remy's cards all over the couch cushions and half all over the floor and then spill apple juice on top of all of them like a non-alcoholic flood. He didn't mean to get juice down the front of his own shirt and all over Remy's pants. It was a goddamn certainty that he didn't mean to land with one knee planted either side of Remy LeBeau's stupid thighs, knees digging into the wooden frame under the cushions and wrinkling up the scattered cards till he was basically sitting in the guy's lap. He absolutely did not mean to lay one on him with his fingers twisting hard into Remy's dumb reddish-brownish-whateverish hair. All he'd meant to do was shut him up. He hadn't meant to kiss him. 

Still, he guesses, accident or not, it _did_ shut him up. When he pulled away, when climbed back to his feet and he walked away rubbing at the apple-juiced patch on his shirt, Gambit didn't say a word at all.

\---

The second time was an accident, too. 

They'd flown out in the Blackbird one night right in the middle of the hockey game Logan had been trying to watch and they'd saved the day just like always, rescued Kitty and Jubilee from some crazy-ass anti-mutant plot 'cause somehow it was pretty much always the non-mutants screwing crap up and not the ones with the actual powers. They'd rescued Kitty and Jubilee, though later they protested they'd been about to rescue themselves thanks very much, but the problem was they'd all gotten hit with some kind of a dumbass scientific raygun in the process, broad-beam so it got them all in one big shot. Logan can only think the guy who'd made it hadn't had a whole lot of time set aside for field tests 'cause all it did was screw with their voices and nothing else. Every time they spoke, it was like nails on a chalkboard multiplied about a thousand times and dragged up several decibels, so they all just shut the hell up. All except for Gambit, of course, who just couldn't keep his big mouth shut even when Logan cuffed him round the back of the head and everyone else all desperately mimed zipping their lips like it was a game of X-Men Charades. Sometimes the guy was real slow on the uptake.

So, once they'd gotten back to the plane and found the sound was ten times worse cooped up in a confined, metallic space, once One-Eye's delicate damn ears had started to bleed just a little, Logan got up out of his seat and clamped one hand down over Remy's mouth as he stood there behind him. He only struggled for the first few seconds, making a muffled shrieking noise behind Logan's bare palm that was still loud enough to smart though maybe just 'cause Logan was so damn close, then he quieted down pretty quickly. Logan kept his hand there all the way back to the mansion just to be sure, standing behind Remy's seat and hanging onto the headrest 'cause while Storm's flying was usually pretty good, it wasn't exactly the smoothest ride without a seatbelt. And Remy didn't even try to complain again, he just looked at Logan every now and then with his neck craned round at a slightly creepy angle. He guessed he'd known him long enough by then that it was just the angle that was creepy and not the color of his eyes.

Then, when they landed, Logan let all the others leave first. Once the plane was otherwise deserted and the hangar itself was empty, he finally let go; Remy stood and stretched and tried to speak and of course he shrieked instead of speaking, so Logan shoved him back down off his feet into his seat. He followed him down, no real thought there in his head at all except _shut up!_ as he straddled Remy's thighs and sat himself in his lap and he stopped his stupid shrieking with his mouth. Remy didn't try to complain then, either, though Logan guessed maybe that was 'cause he was just as surprised as Logan was himself. 

He really didn't mean to do it but at least when he pulled away, when he stood and walked away and got down out of the plane, Gambit didn't say a word. The effects only lasted another thirty minutes tops, but Remy was quiet for all of them.

\---

The third time, it was another goddamn accident.

Because of course he did - of frigging _course_ he did - Gambit went away by himself for a couple of days, took off for an unscheduled trip like he did sometimes, and when he got back...well, the only way to put it was he'd gotten himself hexed. And okay, so the irony of it wasn't lost on Logan 'cause the hex in question had loosened up all the language connections inside Gambit's head, scrambled them around and made the smooth-talking jackass speak total word salad. Still, after the first couple of days, the novelty wore pretty thin. 

"I guess we should send him to Strange," Cyclops said, half-grudgingly, sitting there at the dinner table on the third night, after yet another conversation's worth of Remy's incomprehensible nonsense crap. It wasn't even like there was a pattern to it 'cause the meanings all seemed to shift from one sentence to the next, totally unpredictable - one moment _I_ was _haddock_ and the next it was _judiciary_ and while the others tried to make some abstract link between courthouses and North Atlantic fishing trawlers, Logan just shook his head and sipped his beer 'cause when it came down to it, magic made no sense. So, that was that, decision made. They couldn't live with it and hope that it'd just wear off 'cause it was driving them all up the wall and round the twist. They'd send Gambit to Dr freaking Strange and see if a sorcerer could undo the stupid magic he'd gotten himself cursed with. 

Somehow, Logan got himself volunteered to take him to New York, something about how they knew he was headed that way anyway and so that just made good sense, not that it made a whole lot of sense to Logan 'cause what he'd been planning was a solo drive with the radio on and not some kind of irritating-ass road trip. They spent the whole ride there in Logan's jeep with the soft top up in the pouring rain trying to drown out Remy's cheery gibberish with cheesy country music as Logan's knuckles got ever whiter at the wheel. Then Strange was called away unexpectedly - did sorcerers even really have emergencies? - and jeez, Logan couldn't even get rid of the guy when they got into the city. He wound up dragging Remy's cajun ass to the Avengers' New York base to spend the night.

"Logan, you do know this is _not_ Stark's Boarding House for Itinerant X-Men, right?" Tony said when they arrived, but all the sting was missing out of it 'cause he was too busy fighting back a snicker as he watched Remy attempt to say hi to Carol who was just trying to drink a coffee while minding her own business and she did _not_ look impressed at the interruption. To be honest, she looked a weird mix of confused and unimpressed, which Logan likes to think is a frequent reaction to Gambit in general. He figured maybe a night away from the mansion might be kind of amusing after all.

The problem was, they didn't really have a spare room. Well, okay, sure, they had a ton of spare rooms, but no one had gotten around to fixing them up since the last time the tower had been screwed up by freaking supervillains and all the ceilings and rugs and furniture in half the spare rooms were water damaged though no one even remembered there being any water involved. It was pretty much a miracle that Logan still had his own room, but he guessed that was 'cause no one wanted Wolverine wandering in in the middle of the night and tossing them out of bed, probably literally. And sure, he hadn't left a whole lot of stuff in there 'cause travelling light had kinda turned out to be his specialty, but it seemed no one had really wanted to take responsibility for shoving his abandoned clothes and assorted crap into a box for storage. Sometimes his reputation had its advantages. 

So, when it got close to eleven that night and Cap had finally managed to escape Remy's attempts to flirt with him in hexed-cajunese, Logan tugged Remy toward his room and said _I'll take the couch_. The reply came back _tree whether giblet_ , though who the hell knew if that was actually _whether_ or _weather_ and it wasn't like Remy could say which was right, and Logan really, really didn't want to try to find the sense in that anyway. He just shook his head and opened up the door. 

Remy sat himself down on the edge of the bed and he started to talk and Logan just looked at him, sitting there spouting 100% total bullcrap, and he rubbed his eyes real hard with the heels of his hands. He should've just turned around and walked straight back out again and closed the door behind him, but he guesses maybe he thought Remy and his big mouth would follow him if he did that, or maybe by that point he just wasn't thinking at all, let alone thinking straight. He didn't walk away. What he did was walk forward. What he did was get both hands into Remy's hair so he could tilt back his head with it. What he did was kiss him, standing there between Remy's parted thighs, shoving their mouths together so it didn't much matter if Remy could form a sentence that made sense or not. Remy didn't push him away. To be fair about it, Remy didn't do much of anything at all.

He left after, 'cause it wasn't like he'd meant it, 'cause all he'd meant to do was shut him up and he'd wound up doing something that was a whole lot dumber. Hell, though, as he walked away he told himself it was still nowhere near as dumb as getting the language magicked right out of him and if he had, he would've had the sense to shut the fuck up. He grabbed a blanket from the closet and he spent the night on the couch in his clothes with his boots stuffed underneath the coffee table. Remy was quiet all night; Logan should know 'cause he spent the night listening. He told himself it was self-defense and nothing more. He didn't even think about unbuttoning his jeans under the blanket. He didn't think about what kissing him was like. He didn't think at all. 

And then, in the morning, the doctor was in. Gambit got himself cured and he headed back to Xavier's place all by himself, in Logan's jeep that he promised not to crash though Logan was pretty skeptical about the way he said it, even though the words he said made sense for the first time in days. He guessed that was just 'cause he knew him, and _careful_ was not a word he would've used. 

Logan stayed on in New York and that night, in the bed Remy had slept in just the night before, Logan did _not_ think about him. He didn't think about his body on the sheets and the fact he knew for a fact the guy slept naked. He didn't smell him on the damn bed linen. When he kicked off his jeans under the comforter, when he turned face-down into the pillow Remy had used the night before and rocked his hips against one hand, when he brought himself off, he didn't think about him. 

He didn't think about him for a second. Not at all.

\---

The fourth time was something kinda different, but Logan still wouldn't say it was totally on purpose. 

When he and Storm got back to Xavier's from some dumb three-week jaunt with the Avengers, it turned out Gambit had been silent by then for just over two of them. It wasn't magic this time, wasn't some dumb scientific invention lacking in testing, wasn't even some kind of misguided vow of silence though Logan would've paid good money to've seen that. No: he'd picked up some kind of jerkwad alien orb while out on a mission, some weird thing that'd apparently glowed real bright and made him pass out and left him with zero control over his vocal cords. Xavier said the experts' reports - though who the hell the experts were Logan had no clue - were it'd only last a few months and probably not much longer, and they had no cure but there'd be no other ill effects; still, when Logan caught up with the guy at dinner that night he looked about three steps from drowning himself in the damn gazpacho. Surprise surprise, it turned out Remy LeBeau was not a fan of enforced silence.

They had beers in the rec room after dinner and Logan thought it was pretty great, getting through a whole movie without Remy's running commentary following on from the action the whole way through. He gathered up the empty bottles after, as the credits rolled, and tossed them into the trash - sometimes leaving them there just wasn't worth One-Eye's persistent whining in the morning, though he'd never tell him that - then he slung one arm round Gambit's dumb drunk waist and he hoisted him up to his room. When he left him there, face-down against the mattress, it was almost eerie that he wasn't singing off-key French ballads to his pillow, just like usual. He was completely silent. Jeez, it was unnerving.

Two days later, Logan wound up watching him playing crappy video games with Jubilee. He should've been cussing the house down in pretty cajun French he was losing so damn comprehensively, even Logan could tell that, but he was absolutely silent, even when Jubilee's powers fried the console with a fizz and a pop and a familiar puff of smoke. That was pretty much the end of the game, though, and Jubilee took the smoking machine with all its trailing wires down the corridor to Hank to see if he could do anything to fix it - Logan didn't exactly have high hopes - and Remy rubbed his face, his head in his hands. Logan watched him, making out he was reading some back issue of National Geographic on the couch across the room like that was even remotely like the truth. And after that, Remy spent an hour blowing shit up in the Danger Room like that could make him feel better somehow. Logan watched him do that, too, on the monitors up in the control room. Maybe he shouldn't've, but he'd never seen the cajun so exasperated. It was pretty fascinating. 

Two days after that, Logan wound up watching him training with Rogue. The two of 'em had been flirting like it'd been going out of style for years by then so it was just kinda sad to see all Rogue's pretty words fall so totally flat, Remy just getting more and more frustrated with it all till they had to call it quits. And after, that night, past dark, while Remy was who the hell knew where, Logan overheard Rogue talking to Storm about it. 

"He needs to snap out of this darned funk of his," Rogue said, sprawling dramatically on the couch. "Don't'cha wish he'd realize we're right?"

Storm put a bookmark in her book and set it down on her knee. "We have done all we can, Rogue," she replied. "He will embrace the opportunity or he will not." 

Logan knew what they were saying 'cause he'd heard the same damn thing from Scott and Jean: there was some dumb crap going round about how there was more to Gambit than his voice, that he had some kind of hidden depths or some such bullcrap and maybe the silence was really some great damn opportunity 'cause under the swagger there was something else, some kind of essential Remyness he just needed to let himself discover. As the ladies' conversation went on, Logan heard Remy loitering outside the window, or smelled him, or whatever it was he did before he saw him in the shadows. Remy shook his head and frowned and walked away. Logan did likewise: he didn't believe that crap for a second more than Remy did. The others all thought he was just being petulant, but Logan could see just how it was wearing at him.

Three days later they had a job to do, so they all filed on board the Blackbird and flew on out of state to join the fight. Maybe Remy couldn't talk but he could for damn sure still fight and so there he was, there they all were, fighting. The problem was, Remy couldn't call out a warning when some damn laser-shooting drone got the drop on Logan - all he could do was toss a card in his direction and, Logan guesses, hope he didn't blow his hairy ass to kingdom come. The drone fizzled out of existence in a shower of scorched microchips and shreds of aluminum alloy and Logan's hair maybe got a little singed in the process, but he guessed the important part was he survived. He'd probably've survived it anyway, sure, even if he'd been shot with the goddamn laser, but it wasn't like he _enjoyed_ that shit and who knew, maybe one day someone'd really find a way to kill him. 

"Hey, maybe next time you can cut it even closer," Logan called. "I won't need a shave for a month." But Gambit couldn't retort. For a second, it looked like he forgot his dumbass predicament and he tried to, but then he closed his mouth, smiled real tightly and not real nicely and turned and walked away, fight finished, back to the plane. He didn't even have the good grace to give him the finger over his shoulder on the way. Jeez, that wasn't good.

Gambit was missing at dinner. He was missing at breakfast. He showed up at lunch just long enough to show off an impressive black eye and scuffed knuckles as he made off with three sandwiches and a frigging stein of black coffee, then he disappeared again until the next day at breakfast. He ate in silence - like he could do anything else except Logan guesses he could've: Storm said they'd tried to teach him the basics of sign language, just the alphabet in ASL so he could spell crap out at least, and they'd all been willing to learn at least that much except for the jackass himself. At some point before Logan'd gotten back he'd even stopped even mouthing the words, maybe 'cause playing twenty freaking questions every time he wanted to say something had gotten really old and no one there read lips too well. Hell, they'd given him a notebook and pen after that, too, like it made up for losing his voice, and he'd refused to use it. Rogue said he'd started making little paper airplanes instead and sending them up to explode in the air over the tennis courts, and he'd stood on the ballpoint and ground his heel till the leaking ink stained the paving stone blue. Logan guessed that much was true, at least - he'd seen the stain.

Gambit drank all Logan's damn beer later on that night and when Logan confronted him, Remy just shrugged and snagged the last one like he was actively willing him to start a fight. He didn't. He just sat there on the end of the couch and watched him instead, Gambit pretending like he didn't notice, pretending like he was concentrating on some nature documentary about fricking emu or something like that, like either of them gave a damn about emu. Logan gave up first. He figured he didn't mind losing if it was a race to the bottom.

He caught up to him again the next day in the Danger Room. By the end of it, he kinda wished he hadn't. 

They'd always enjoyed training together before, at least kinda perversely 'cause they spent at least as much time on opposite sides in there as they did on the same one. Sometimes, though he'd've denied it to the grave, Logan enjoyed it as much for the cajun's straightforward company as for the workout, yelling dumbass taunts at each other as they tried to get the upper hand and Gambit'd laugh and Logan'd grumble even when he was at least as amused as Remy was. They'd get beers after, maybe shoot a little pool, watch a movie and snark at each other till Jubilee pelted them with chips and told 'em to get a room if they wanted to act like an old married couple and hell, Logan guesses neither one of them told her she was wrong. That day, though, was nowhere near the same. 

Logan cornered him on his way into the Danger Room, sauntered on over already dressed in his suit like it was just some kind of a happy coincidence they'd met there, and at that point it would've been pretty damn hard for Gambit to say no even if he could've actually said no. So they started up the program and they went inside and from the get-go the whole thing was more full-on somehow 'cause Remy couldn't speak to lighten up the mood. It was a whole hell of a lot more serious - jeez, for a while there it really was like they were trying to kill each other - 'cause there was no stupid banter to take the sting out of it. There were pistons and fires and the walls came in and twenty minutes turned to thirty, forty-five, like it was nothing except they were getting hotter and angrier, scowling, teeth bared, and when they wound up together in a tangled heap on the Danger Room floor, Remy couldn't laugh so they couldn't laugh it off the way they always had before, whenever they'd fallen one on top of the other, whenever it'd gotten too close for comfort. Remy just sat there straddling Logan's hips, leaning down with one hand either side of Logan's shoulders, his staff pressed down across Logan's throat, and Logan couldn't say _I know I'm real pretty, cajun, but you don't need to stare_ and shrug it off before they went another round, 'cause he knew Gambit couldn't counter. Gambit looked serious, so so did Logan. Gambit glared, so so did Logan. He hadn't realized how much he'd always taken the tone from him before that, too. He hadn't realized he hadn't minded. 

He didn't mean to kiss him. It was a goddamn accident and it wasn't even the next thing he did - what he did was shove him off of him and push himself up, offer him a hand and say _best two out of three?_ and Gambit nodded stiffly as he got one hand round Logan's wrist and let him pull him up off of his ass. But as they fought the next time, Logan was watching him real close, closer than he ever had, not just the way he moved but the expression on his face, the look in his eyes, _where_ his eyes looked. Remy didn't take his eyes off him, not for a second. His attention was fixed on him. So was Logan's, the other way around. There was nothing else. 

There was no witty repartee to distract them from what was going on, from each other, from the flush of Remy's skin and the thump of Logan's pulse, and the exertion of it that usually burned off Logan's gruffness and made Remy grin just wound them both up harder and a hell of a lot tighter. The imposed silence was getting to Remy. It was getting to Logan, too. Damn, it had them both off balance. Just a couple of words and it would've all felt fine, but Remy couldn't say a single one. A couple of words every time they got too close, Remy's cocky grin and a second's over-the-top flirting, and they'd've been right back on track. A couple of words and Logan wouldn't've felt just like he wanted to rip the guy to shreds just to see if that could make him talk. A couple of words and Logan wouldn't've wanted to get his hands on Remy's skin and rake up livid red lines with his nails just to see how he'd react. A couple of words and he wouldn't've wanted anything more than a thrown-together ham sandwich and a beer they'd share on the couch.

Twenty tense minutes later, Logan shoved Remy up to the nearest wall with a snarl and a grimace, claw-points to his throat, and Remy couldn't snicker his way out or even cede defeat. And when Logan kissed him, his fingers in Remy's hair, so fucking riled up he shoved one set of claws into the wall all the way down to his knuckles, he didn't mean to do it. It was an accident, it was totally unintentional, no forethought, no plan. But when he kissed him, this time it wasn't to shut Remy up. This time, it was to break the damn silence. 

The shame of it, of course, was that somehow it didn't help. Logan stalked away after and Remy let him go, just stood there with his back against the claw-damaged wall that was smeared with blood from Logan's already healing hand and watched him leave. And Logan, as he pulled off his suit, as he went up to his room, as he rubbed his knuckles as they healed up good as new, started to think; if Remy'd been able to form words, he'd've said Logan thinking was kinda dangerous, and he would've been right.

He hadn't given it much thought before, which he guessed wasn't surprising. He sat himself down heavy on the end of his weight bench with his forearms pressed to the knees of his jeans and he rubbed his face with his hands and he wondered to himself what the hell it was that he'd just done. He wondered what the hell he'd been doing for weeks by then. He wondered why the hell Remy hadn't pushed him away or hit him or whatever, and jeez, when he looked at it, he'd been so riled up and pissed off he'd've had him right then and there if he'd shown any interest, up against the wall, on the floor, _right there_. If Remy had kissed him back, he'd've done something _really_ dumb. Fuck. This was getting out of hand. 

He didn't mean for it to happen again the next day. He really didn't, he totally didn't, he'd told himself no frigging more, except sometime after breakfast they wound up back in the Danger Room beating the crap out of each other like there was no other place they'd've rather been. After the first twenty minutes Gambit took off his coat and tossed it aside for once, like wearing a coat with your fricking business duds in their line of work had ever been a good idea in the history of anything. After thirty minutes, too freaking hot and pissed off and irritated, Logan pulled off his mask and pulled off his gloves and stretched till his back cracked while Remy caught his breath. Then they started again.

Remy tripped Logan with his staff and sent him sprawling on the floor. And Logan growled, he fucking _growled_ , and he launched himself at Remy with his claws popped out of both hands. He took him right down to the ground with an ugly scrape of metal on the floor tiles and Remy's staff clattering the hell away, he pinned him down and Remy got his hands around Logan's neck and Logan got his knee between Remy's thighs, shoved up tight to his groin. Remy squeezed, his thumbs tight over Logan's throat. Logan bared his teeth. And Remy's red eyes were glowering, they were fucking _burning_ , and Logan strained closer, didn't care that it hurt, didn't care he could barely take a breath, pushed down closer till he could press his mouth up hard to Remy's. Remy didn't try to stop him, not really. The hands around his throat were nothing and Remy had to know that, if he knew anything at all, and there were so many other things he could've done instead that would've really, actually stopped him. He'd never tried to stop him. 

Oh, fuck. _He'd never tried to stop him_. Not once. Not even a little. Somehow Remy's red eyes made him 20% harder to read and so maybe that was how Logan'd missed it, but he knew him. If Remy hadn't stopped it, that meant he was working through the fact that he wanted it, too. If Remy hadn't stopped it, that meant he was waiting for more.

When Logan pulled back and rocked up to his feet and tried to stalk away, he didn't get far; once Logan's claws were in, Remy caught his wrist and so Logan snapped back round to face him. And for a second it looked for all the world like there was something right on the tip of Remy's damn fool tongue but he couldn't say the words - all he could do was throw his hands up in complete exasperation and then stalk away himself and leave Logan right there, alone, staring after him like a fucking idiot. 

Remy was pulling off his clothes and tossing them aside in a real stupid trail as he walked away into the damn communal showers outside the Danger Room and Logan just left it all right where it was as he followed, tense, pissed, irritated, all the things Remy ever made him feel. Remy was naked as the day he was born when Logan got in there, every piece of his armor gone and his mask on the floor, he was already under the spray and really, screw that, screw it all, Logan wasn't going to be ignored even if that was likely the best damn outcome either of them could've hoped for. He stalked on in there, still in most of his suit though hell, his mask and his gloves were still in the fricking Danger Room, and Gambit looked at him like he'd lost it and maybe he had by the time he got a handful of Remy's long, wet hair and pulled him down into a kiss though he knew about ten times better than to do it. He half expected another fight but he didn't get one. What he got was just a moment's pause and then water in his eyes and then Remy's hands twisting tight in his hair, Remy pulling him closer. What he got was Remy's mouth against his, Remy's tongue, Remy's soaking wet body pressed up against the fabric of his suit like maybe if they tried hard enough they could eat each other alive. It would've been pretty hard to laugh it off at that point even if Remy had been able to make any kind of sound at all. Remy's cock was hard against him. Logan was getting that way pretty quickly, too.

Logan's mouth went bare-toothed to the crook of Remy's neck, one hand strayed down between Remy's bare thighs, and right then Logan realized Remy _could_ make a sound. Maybe all he had was his breath but Remy's breath hitched and Logan growled down low against Remy's wet collarbone. He reached past him and he shut off the shower just so he could hear him better and when he went down on his still-clothed, soaked knees on the wet tiled floor, when he took Remy's cock in one hand and teased the tip of it with the tip of his tongue, Remy gasped and let his head fall back against the tiled wall. When he sucked him, his hands at Gambit's hips and Gambit's fingers in his hair, Gambit's breath shallow and quick and loud in the otherwise empty room, he thought maybe they didn't need words after all. At least not right then.

But when Remy shuddered and came, his hips bucking hard against Logan's steady hands, once Logan had swallowed around him and let him slide slowly, weak-kneed, down to sit against the wall, that was it. That was _it_. Logan pushed himself up and stepped back and Remy watched him from the floor, his jaw set, his head tilted back against the wall, his red eyes on him. 

He left him there. It was all just so fucking stupid. He turned and he walked away and he left him there, squelching all the way back up to his room, because hell if he knew what else to do.

\---

He didn't see Remy again after that till the next morning at breakfast, not that he'd really expected to. He hadn't thought he'd run into him in the rec room with beer and a rented movie on VHS that they'd watch shoulder-to-shoulder like they usually did. He hadn't thought there'd be some dumbass confrontation on the porch overlooking the tennis courts, trying to pretend like they weren't arguing in case any of the kids came by. He hadn't thought they'd talk about it, but it wasn't a conversation Remy could've had via irritated hand signals and Logan didn't feel much like discussion anyway. He hadn't thought there'd be a knock on the door in the middle of the night. He didn't expect it so he wasn't disappointed. 

Then, breakfast. Rogue asked Gambit to pass the eggs, so he did. The professor asked him to pass the coffee, so he did. When Logan asked him to pass the bacon, he slammed it down on the table and he left the room. The others exchanged confused looks. Logan cursed under his breath and thought about following him; he finished his breakfast instead. 

He didn't see Remy again after that till the next night at dinner, not that he really expected to. He hadn't been thinking about tracking him down. He hadn't been thinking about dragging him back into the Danger Room. He definitely hadn't been thinking about the showers and actually getting naked himself this time instead of getting his suit soaked through and leaving footprints down the corridors on the way back to his room, or Remy's mute mouth or his hands or his cock or getting him down on his knees so the damned height difference couldn't get in the way of things. He hadn't sat up late at night thinking about wrapping Remy's ponytail around his palm as Remy's lips sealed up tight around the head of his cock. Jeez, he hadn't been fantasizing about Remy LeBeau. 

He saw him at dinner that night and every time he looked up, Remy's eyes were on him. No one seemed to think there was anything wrong 'cause it's not like Logan's ever been real chatty, but something was wrong and he knew it even if no one else did. Something was wrong with the way Remy looked at him over the bowl of peas and the mountain of mashed potatoes. There was something wrong with the way he looked back at him over the carrots, though the others probably just thought Logan was being his usual surly self or maybe they were fighting again. He was and he wasn't. They were and they weren't.

After dinner, Rogue chose a movie and Logan drank and while the others half watched and half chatted their way through the evening, no one noticed when Remy slipped away - no one except Logan, and that was just 'cause he was watching him the whole damn time. When Logan left them ten minutes, fifteen minutes later, either no one noticed that, either, or no one thought much of it - he guessed that made sense, considering how gruff he'd been through dinner. 

He went up to Remy's room before he even really knew where the hell he was going. He knocked and he got no answer and when he listened at the door like some goddamn teenage eavesdropper there was no one there, sure there wasn't, of course there wasn't, and maybe that was for the best anyway 'cause exactly what the hell had he been planning to do if he'd actually found him? He rested his forehead down against the door and for a second, just for a second, he thought about putting his claws straight through the wood just to blow off steam. In the end, he just walked away. He went back to his own room. He opened up the door. _That_ was where he found Gambit.

He was stretched out naked on Logan's bed, his clothes in a heap on the floor behind the door. He had one hand up behind his head and the other one was wrapped around his cock. He was hard. He was huge and hard and frowning and clearly still pissed the hell off and Logan cursed under his breath and then he joined him 'cause somehow it seemed to be the thing to do. His stomach twisted hard and his cock stirred in his jeans and he could've torn the whole damn room apart in forty seconds flat, but he joined him. If he hadn't, who the hell knew what he would've done.

He didn't undress, not really. All he did was unbuckle his belt and shove his jeans down as far as his knees and, as Remy turned and went down on his forearms and his knees, Logan shoved his shirt up under his armpits out of the way. He rested his cock against the small of Remy's back and Remy took a deep, audible breath. He reached for the lube in the drawer by the bed and Remy edged his knees out wider till he was so close down to the bed that the head of his cock brushed moist against the sheets. Logan swiped lube between Remy's spread cheeks and rubbed impatient circles with one thumb against the hole there. He slicked himself. He pressed up against him, the head of his cock pressed blunt to the hole between Remy's cheeks. Then he gripped Remy's hips and he pushed in, he pushed into him in slow, halting thrusts, repositioning and pushing in again inch by inch, watching Remy's stupid body stretch to take it all till he was inside him just as deep as he could get, reeling from it, still not totally sure if he wanted to fuck him or fight him. Remy gasped a breath and let it out shakily as he pushed back against him like he didn't know, either. Then Logan started to move. 

It lasted a whole lot longer than Logan guesses either of them expected at the start. It had all the hallmarks of a quick, over-eager fumble that should've been over pretty much before it began but somehow that's not how it wound up. Logan had him real slow instead, rocking deep as Remy pushed back to meet him, the friction of it making Remy hiss 'cause he didn't need a voice for that and Logan groaned under his breath. And jeez, the whole thing was so damn quiet, no cajun cusswords or witty remarks or stories about the last time he'd done it, the first time, the best time that'd probably been back south in Louisiana 'cause most of Gambit's stories wound up there, however damn circuitously. But Gambit couldn't say a word, not a single one. All he could do was breathe real hard like he was about to hyperventilate and push back real hard against Logan's cock like he wanted more and harder and deeper, like he just couldn't help himself. Maybe he couldn't. Maybe it was the distraction he'd needed since the start.

Remy's skin got hotter the longer they went, as they paused to shift positions, Logan bringing up one foot flat to the mattress for leverage so he was down on one knee instead of on both. Before Logan knew it they were both getting slippy with sweat, the line of Remy's back, Logan's hands, Remy's hair sticking to his skin as he dropped his head down onto his forearms. Maybe it was the creepy-ass quiet that did it or maybe it was just the way Remy's skin flushed in the crappy lamplight but Logan pulled out and pushed Remy down on his back on the bed, ran his hands over his thighs, ran one hand over his dick that was so hard and heavy against his abdomen it was pretty close to ridiculous. Then he shuffled up while Remy's hands took a good hold on the headboard, he got his thighs in underneath Remy's and he pushed back in again right up to the hilt. Somehow, seeing the twisted-up look on Remy's face, knowing the only reason he was so damn quiet when his expression said he was yelling down the house was he just _couldn't_ make a noise, knowing Remy didn't even need to try to control himself to keep from being heard so he pretty much wasn't trying...jeez, that all just made it ten times better. Remy wrapped his legs round Logan's waist and fucking _writhed_ against him, yanking on the headboard till the wooden slats creaked with it. Logan fucked him, grinding against him, his hands tight at Remy's hips. They moved together, muscles straining till it almost hurt. 

Remy came first, in long busts over his own hand at his cock and all over Logan's stomach, muscles all pulling tight and taut, and the look on his face told Logan all he needed to know about how that felt. Logan didn't feel a whole lot like holding off after and a couple of minutes later he came, too, still pushed up deep inside him. He muffled a groan with one hand as he did it, hips jerking in nothing like a rhythm, and Remy watched him the whole time, till Logan was just as utterly spent as he could've been. They stayed there just like that till they'd both caught their breath again, and then Logan pulled back and pulled out and dragged a box of tissues over from the nightstand so they could make some small attempt at getting cleaned up, at least. They both really needed a shower, but he figured it'd do.

He didn't expect Remy to stay, after, so he wasn't surprised when he put on his clothes and made to leave. But he stopped at the door. He turned back. 

For a second, it looked like he had something to say, but he just couldn't say it. Of course he couldn't say it, and it wasn't a whole lot like Logan could read minds. 

He couldn't say it, so he turned away again and left instead. 

\---

When it happened again, Logan didn't really mean it to then, either. 

Remy came back the next night. He just opened up Logan's bedroom door sometime after dinner just like he had a key and he hadn't picked the lock, and Logan pretended not to notice that he'd done it. Logan tossed his magazine onto the floor - some crappy motorcycle rag he'd snagged from Scott - and watched him walk across the room, slowly, like he was giving Logan time to say _go fuck yourself_ when the idea seemed to be pretty much the opposite. That first night, Remy straddled Logan's denim-clad thighs fully clothed while he sat back on the bed against the headboard and they made out like a pair of total jackasses while they ground their hips together, and damn if they didn't get off without so much as taking off their shirts, let alone anything else. Remy left after. Logan picked up the magazine, read the same two lines six times, then gave up and went to sleep.

The second night, they got their pants shoved down around their knees and jerked each other off like furtive teenagers at summer camp as they knelt there on the bed, not that Logan had ever been to summer camp and the closest he'd ever gotten was those slasher movies where sex would get you killed so okay, maybe he wasn't exactly the best judge. Remy kissed him as Logan caught both their cocks in one of his hands and stroked them together, made himself groan against Remy's damn fool mouth and hell, at least that time he didn't need to take his jeans down to the laundry right after. 

The next day, Remy sucked him off in the Danger Room after training, still clothed, and Logan guessed they could blame the adrenaline. The day after that, it was in the Blackbird when they got back in from a job, Remy straddling Logan's lap, mouth to mouth, palms pressed up tight over each other's suits. They showered together afterwards, naked under the near-scalding spray, hands everywhere once they'd both washed themselves down separately. And after, later, after dinner with the others like nothing was different, Remy let himself into Logan's room again and he stripped himself naked right in front of him, straightforward, not even a hint of striptease to it. Logan hadn't had half as much sex in such a short time in years and okay, so it was Remy, so he hadn't exactly been right at the top of his list, but right then, over him, in him, Gambit's hands practically clawing at his ass to get him pushed in deeper, he kinda had to ask himself why that was. Maybe it was 'cause the guy was kind of an ass sometimes. Maybe he'd just never felt much like being another notch on Gambit's bedpost. Maybe cajun accents just didn't do it for him and silence had been a frigging godsend, who knew. Or maybe it was just 'cause it was Remy, and fucking him was just fucked up.

The ninth night, Remy fell asleep after they were done, there in Logan's bed; ten minutes later, Logan realized he didn't need the use of his vocal cords to snore like a low-flying airplane. Somehow that seemed fine, though, 'cause Logan had absolutely slept through worse, and he settled down and turned out the light and went to sleep right next to him. Remy was gone again by morning. 

The twelfth night, he slept with Remy's hair tickling his nose till he sneezed and woke them both up, and Remy looked at him like he was amused or confused or halfway between the two as he put on his clothes and went back to his own room. The fifteenth night, he slept tucked up against Remy's bare back with one arm slung around his waist and no damn idea in the morning how Remy'd gotten out of bed and slipped without waking him, 'cept he clearly had. 

The twenty-first night, he woke up the next morning and Remy was still there, sprawling, taking up too much damn space, but he was warm and solid and not some kind of morning after regret, so Logan didn't feel much like kicking him out of bed. Remy turned to him on his side, his head propped up on one hand, and he did this thing with his face that wasn't a smile but wasn't a grimace and wasn't quite awkward but wasn't quite easy, and Logan clucked his tongue and shook his head and kissed him, problem solved.

When it all started feeling comfortable, that was still an accident 'cause Logan sure as hell hadn't meant for it to happen. He hadn't meant for any of it to happen at all, right from the start, so it was pretty hard to see how it could've all been part of some fiendish masterplan to get Gambit into bed and keep him there - it really was an accident. But twenty days turned to thirty, thirty to forty-five, forty-five to sixy, and they were there every night, in Logan's bed, till they each had their own side of it, their own pillow, a chair for Gambit's clothes and the weight bench for Logan's. Sometimes they came in from a job so tired and vaguely pissed off that all they did was turn out the lights and go straight to sleep. Sometimes Remy was so damn riled he would've yelled out loud if he could've, but Logan guessed the whole problem there was he couldn't 'cause it all came out more like a sigh, no matter what. So, they fought instead. They beat on each other down in the Danger Room with none of the jokey-ass banter they'd always had before. They fought in Logan's room, broke his furniture and screwed in its splintered remains till Remy's hands and knees and elbows were all getting rubbed red raw. It was funny how that crap was what passed for comfortable between the two of them. It was funny that no one complained about the noise but Logan guesses they were all just pleased they weren't the ones dealing with Gambit being a gigantic damn brat week after week. Maybe Logan wasn't the ideal babysitter, but at least he seemed to be doing it willingly. 

At some point they started to spend their days together, too. They started drinking on the fricking porch in the afternoon while summer turned cooler, came closer to fall, till they both started wearing jackets while they drank till Gambit's speech would've been slurred if he'd been able to speak. They went to bars together some nights, sat opposite each other in perfect silence while they ate crappy half-cooled chicken wings and listened to bad pop music piped over the radio. Sometimes it got real hard to recall that it'd ever been any other way and they'd not always gone back out to Logan's jeep when they were done and fumbled in each other's jeans in the darkest corner of the parking lot. They played pool together and Gambit somehow managed to restrain himself from blowing up the balls and, once or twice, one or two or maybe three or even four of the others joined them. 

Seventy-three days in, Scott and Jean and Rogue and Bobby all sitting there in the bar with them, they didn't get why Remy got right up left when they asked why he wasn't making eyes at the waitress the way he'd always used to. They didn't get why Logan took off after him. Logan didn't even try to explain. 

He didn't need to say a thing when he caught up to him outside. He put one hand on Remy's shoulder and Remy flinched and turned to look at him, drawing himself up as tall as he could in the shitty parking lot half-light the way he still does when he wants to piss Logan off. Not that it works 'cause while Logan's got issues, one of those is _not_ related to his height. 

"Get in the jeep," Logan said. 

Remy huffed in response. 

"I said, get in the jeep."

Remy crossed his arms over his chest and set his jaw. 

"I said get in the goddamn jeep." 

They stared each other down and Remy pulled a card from his inside pocket but twenty long, silent seconds later he sighed, resigned, and he put it away again. He got into the jeep and slammed the passenger side door. He hadn't even charged the damn card, let alone thrown it. Logan hadn't gotten out his claws, hadn't even thought about it. It hadn't been anywhere close to a real fight. 

They drove back to the mansion together, the silence pretty stony, as much as it could be for a guy who couldn't speak and a guy who sometimes didn't much like to. Remy was the apathetic side of pissed and Logan was just the same low-level kind of irritated he'd been for weeks as they bounced their way over occasional bumps in the winding road to what was essentially home for the both of them. They parked in the garage and they went inside, dodged a couple of kids who looked a whole lot like they were also dodging them, and they made their way upstairs. 

Logan thought about ducking into the laundry room along the way and letting the dryers drown out the silence between them for a while. He thought about dragging him into the rec room and sitting him down in front of some crappy action flick so fake gunshots and explosions would fill up the silence instead - they knew what the real thing sounded like a whole lot better than most, but sometimes he got a kick out of the movies. He thought about the Danger Room, too, but in the end they wound up someplace else. 

It'd been a really long goddamn day, playing gym instructor to a bunch of kids who all seemed to think they were smarter than he was and heck, they probably were, except he knew smarts don't always get you any less dead when it comes down to it. Then there'd been a polite kind of lunch with Xavier there at the head of the table and the kids all on their best behavior and an afternoon of training down in the Danger Room with the seniors like having lived as long as he had qualified him as a teacher somehow and jeez, if they'd've listened to a word he said they might've almost been dangerous. And, in the background, all day, everywhere he'd gone, every corner he'd turned, there'd been Gambit like an armor-clad shadow. He played solitaire on the dining table. He juggled stolen apples in the Danger Room's control room. He perched on top of the assault course wall and watched the kids all fall down in the mud, though not even that could raise a smile. 

It'd been a really long goddamn day and maybe he was thinking they had a whole other room to start destroying. Maybe he was thinking a change of venue would do them both some good. Mostly he figures it was 'cause he was so frigging tired and they came to Remy's room before his 'cause the door was before his on the corridor. He counted down the numbers, backwards like it made any sense for room numbers to go high to low instead of low to high, then he stopped at Remy's, so abruptly the cajun walked straight into his back with a bump. Remy raised his brows like that was a question and Logan just tapped at the door lock with the back of one hand. Remy unlocked the door. Logan went inside. 

When Remy followed him in and turned to close the door behind them, Logan pushed him up face-first against it. God, the whole place reeked of him - it hit Logan like a frigging brick to the noggin, got into his head and made him woozy, stupid fucking senses, stupid fucking mutation. He told himself what happened after was because of that, 'cause Scott and Jean had been spending even more time together than usual and so every time Logan ran into her he could smell him on her, and it put his teeth on edge. He told himself it was because he was thinking about Jean like he always was and this crap with Remy was cathartic. Truth was, he hadn't thought about Jean like that in weeks. 

He leaned up on his toes and he grazed the nape of Remy's neck with his teeth and Remy sighed, his forehead pressed to wood, spreading out his fingers there against the back of the thick wooden door. Logan tugged at the armor Remy was still wearing - because jeez, when the hell _didn't_ he wear it? - got it loose and Remy shimmied out of it, tossed it aside after. Then Logan popped out the claws on one hand and ran the blunt back of them down the length of Remy's spine. He pulled at the neck of Remy's shirt and he shoved the tip of one claw straight through it like maybe just on impulse, tore down, ripping the damn shirt as much as he cut it until it hung wide open at the back from Remy's shoulders and he didn't even try to complain. Claws still out, Logan pressed that hand to the door, the tips of his claws resting against the wood, and he leaned in, nuzzled the space between Remy's shoulderblades, scraped against it with his stubbly jaw, pressed his mouth there, his free hand tugging lightly at the back of Remy's belt. 

Remy would probably miss the belt, Logan figured, but that didn't stop him. He cut through it. He cut through the waistband of Remy's pants. He cut down, following the crack of Remy's ass, the sound of fabric slicing open somehow even louder than his pulse in his ears and that was saying something. Then the claws went back in and Logan tucked his hands into the torn back of Remy's pants, cupped his ass, squeezed. Remy pushed back so Logan pushed forward, rubbed his own denim-clad crotch against Remy's bare ass and screw that, that wasn't nearly enough, not by half or more. 

He unbuckled his belt still right there close behind him, fumbling at it dumbly till it hung open from the loops. He unzipped his jeans and he pushed them down around his thighs. He leaned back in, pressing the length of his cock to the crack of Remy's ass, rubbing against it, eyes closed, forehead down between Remy's tense shoulders. He peeled Remy's goddamn painted-on, cut-open pants down over his hips and he took Remy's cock in his hand and Remy's hand went down there, too, squeezed over Logan's, made him tighten his grip just the way he liked. And fuck, it was good, it felt really good, Remy pushing back against him, stroking Remy's cock with Remy's dumbass hand guiding the pace, but it _still_ wasn't enough. Not quite. Not right then, not that time. 

He grabbed the lube from the nightstand where somehow he knew he'd find some, unopened though it was, and he fiddled with the seals, all thumbs with dumb fucking lust. He uncapped the lube and slicked his fingers and rubbed them in between Remy's cheeks and he pressed the first one in, real slow, the way Remy always seemed to like it 'cause it made his back arch hard. A few slow shifts of his hand and he pushed in a second one, still slow, maybe slower, felt it stretch him out, felt him squeeze up tight and then Remy took a deep breath and he started to relax. He was too wound up to relax the whole way, though, Logan guessed, from the way he got his hands flat to the door and pushed back against him, so a few more slow thrusts of his hand, a few twists of his wrist, a few teasing swipes of his thumb against Remy's hole and he pulled back. He slicked himself instead and he guided the blunt head of his cock up against him. He thumbed himself down into place and rocked against him, felt him tense up against him, felt him give a little before finally, finally, he rocked forward on the balls of his feet and pushed up into him. 

They weren't even undressed yet, not all the way, Remy's clothes hanging open and Logan's jeans shoved down, his shirt hiked up, and they still had their goddamn boots on. Logan had one hand on the door and one arm around Remy's waist, his mouth between Remy's shoulderblades, and he shuddered in a breath against Remy's warm skin. Jesus Christ, Remy was tight around him, almost too tight, almost the wrong side of painful, and Remy pushed back against him, rocked his hips till he was fucking himself just a quarter inch at a time on Logan's cock inside him, infuriating, maddening, enough to make Logan's breath catch and his head spin until he pulled out right up to the tip and then thrust back into him, deep and hard. Logan groaned with it. Remy groaned with it. _Remy_ groaned with it. And they both froze up, Logan's heart thumping in him like a fucking jackhammer. 

"Did you...?" Logan asked, his mouth moving against Remy's skin. 

The sound Remy made was maybe meant to be a word and maybe it wasn't, but that wasn't the point. He made a _sound_ , for the first time in months, and Logan jerked back, pulled straight out, nearly tripped the fuck over Remy's discarded armor and only just caught himself in time before he could fall right down on his bare ass. The way he was reacting, he might've deserved it, but it sure as hell didn't feel that way at the time.

Remy turned. He turned slowly and he leaned back against the door behind him, ran his fingers through his stupid hair and didn't quite manage to look at him, like he understood the damn reaction. He looked anywhere but at him, at the nightstand, the bed, the armor on the floor, his staff propped up in one corner of the room, the crappy rug, the toes of Logan's boots. He pulled off his ruined shirt with one hand, balled it up in both and held it up in front of his bare chest like he didn't know what else to do with it, not even in front of his lurid damn erection but then Remy'd never been what you could've called coy. 

Then he cleared his throat and finally looked him in the eye and in a broken-up, fucked-up voice he said, "It's coming back." The way he said it, the expression on his face, you'd've thought the world was coming to an end. You'd've thought it wasn't the best damn news he'd had in months.

Logan figures these days that maybe he should've stayed put after that. Maybe he should've just got back over there and kissed him, his fingers in his hair, Remy's cock pressed up against his belly. Maybe he should've undressed him the rest of the way, at least got their boots off, got him down on Remy's bed where they'd never even done it once before and had him before the moment passed. He didn't. 

"Well, shit," he said instead, harshly, and he tucked himself right back into his jeans and screw how uncomfortable that was. He wiped his slick hands on his thighs and shook his head real tightly and Remy must've got it 'cause he moved away from the door and scowled for a second, flung his balled-up shirt at him as Logan stalked on by and opened up the door and it smacked him in the back of the head but he guessed he kinda deserved that. He left. He was unnerved. He slammed the door behind him and he damn near ran away from Remy's room, shoved a door up under the handle once he got back to his own and then finished himself off in the shower with the heat turned up, on his knees, head bowed and eyes squeezed shut. 

When he came, he had Remy's broken voice stuck in his head. When he came, he had Remy's fucking horrified expression stuck right there in his head. 

The real Remy was back. It was over. He wasn't even sure he could explain why.

\---

Remy's voice came back in pretty quickly after that. 

For the first couple of days, his voice was harsh and raw when he spoke and almost not like him at all except for patches of the same old humor underneath it. He seemed better right away. He seemed happier, like the anger dropped right out of him just 'cause he had a voice again and he didn't have to gesticulate like a jackass to get someone to pass the salt at dinner. Logan watched; it was a hell of a transformation. He almost didn't begrudge him that.

After the first couple of days, Remy's voice turned pretty normal, just the odd crack here and there to remind them it'd ever been any different, but that soon smoothed back out, too. And everything went back to normal in double-quick time after that, not like Logan had ever expected otherwise, exactly the way it'd been before: they worked together, they trained together, they ate together, they drank, they played cards and Gambit cheated and everyone laughed and it was all pretty much exactly the same as it had always been. Except it wasn't.

Gambit flirted with the waitress when they went out for chicken like no one remembered that night he'd walked out, like it hadn't been just ten days before. Gambit flirted with Rogue when they trained down in the Danger Room, like she'd forgotten just how surly his ass had been when he couldn't crack a joke. Gambit flirted with Storm till she laughed and he laughed and the mansion was just all smiles and hearts and fucking flowers. Two weeks, three weeks, a month, and it seemed to Logan like no one even remembered how Gambit had had no damn voice for three whole months or more, including the guy himself. And so Logan tried to let it go, too. It seemed simple enough as a concept, but it didn't quite work out.

When Remy flirted with him over training, Logan paid him no attention. When Remy ran his big mouth in the rec room after dinner, Logan felt like maybe he could shut him up by kissing him but he just got up and walked away. He told himself he just preferred the Gambit with no voice who hadn't irritated the snot out of him at least three times a day. He told himself he was just pissed that no one else remembered how they'd basically written Remy off for not trying hard enough while he'd had no voice and maybe that was all it was, who knew, or maybe it wasn't. But they were all frowning at him, even Remy, even more than usual. He got it. Somehow now _he_ was in the wrong. 

So, he went away. He spent three weeks with the Avengers in New York, pissing off Tony Stark like it was going out of style, but that wasn't far enough 'cause Westchester was just a pretty short drive away, all things considered. So he hopped back into his truck and he took a long trip south, drove through the hills in Virginia, stopped three nights in a Tennessee motel 'cause who the hell would think to find him there and then went on, through Mississippi and down into Louisiana. He parked the truck on the street outside a shitty dive of a New Orleans hotel and he drank the first night away in a bar down the block, passed out in bed after that for fourteen hours straight and then wondered what the hell he was doing there. For five days he ate in crappy diners and drank in crappy bars and every time he heard a Cajun accent it grated, 'cause it reminded him of Gambit, or maybe just because it wasn't him. Fuck that. He'd gone to the wrong place if he wanted to forget about his dumb fucking dalliance with Remy LeBeau.

So, he went north instead. The truck held up real well, considering, as he headed up through Kansas, Nebraska, headed over the border from Montana, slept every night in the driver's seat pulled over at the roadside with his coat zipped all the way up under his chin and a musty-smelling blanket tossed over the top. He kept going, kinda used to the snow and hell, he figured the cold would kill the truck before it got close to killing him. He went up higher, no damn clue where he was headed except away, somewhere, any-fucking-where, someplace he could be alone. Alone sounded good. Just for a couple more weeks, so he could pull himself together and put in the right stitches. 

He rented a fishing cabin out by a lake way out of season, from a half-skeptical owner who tried to tell him freezing to death really wasn't some kind of romantic ideal, but Logan wasn't looking for romance. He went ahead just 'cause that seemed like pretty much the thing to do, 'cause it was quiet there where the only sounds would be the crackle of the fire and the whistle of the kettle when it boiled and the fella seemed to get that, in the end, not that it hurt that Logan No-Last-Name seemed to know exactly what he was getting himself into. The place was pretty sparse but it had more in the way of conveniences than he needed, considering what he'd lived with sometimes, considering what he'd lived _like_ sometimes. He unloaded a big-ass cardboard box of food and assorted supplies he'd picked up in the next town, if you could call it a town, hoisted his pack full of assorted crap and he trudged the last five miles in the thick snow, trudged inside, knocked the snow off of his boots and started on the fire. It was nothing like the mansion. It was quiet. It was fucking bliss. 

He spent three days like that, in the quiet, walking in the woods sometimes, running, climbing a damn tree or two just 'cause he could. He fixed a leak in the cabin roof just 'cause the drip-drip-drip into the turkey pan sat there on the floor underneath it was pissing him off and he cooked over the fire instead of his crappy camping stove 'cause why the hell not. The mattress on the cot was damp so he slept on the big old thick rug on top of the floorboards, in front of the fire, covered up with a sleeping bag with his rolled-up parka as a pillow. It suited him. Sure, sometimes he enjoyed a little luxury, but sometimes cutting back on that shit was kinda good for him, too. It reminded him of who he was. 

The fourth day, in a howling fucking wind, he heard footsteps in the snow outside. And sure, it could've been anyone, could've been an over-optimistic hunter or the cabin's owner checking that he hadn't gone and kicked the bucket after all, or some poor frozen-up, broken-down driver got lost in the woods on their way who knew where. It could've been anyone, but it wasn't. 

"It's cold out there," Gambit said, once he'd flung the door wide open and let out all the warm air in one huge frigging whoosh, and Logan raised his brows like _no, really?_

"Cajun, you don't know what cold is," he replied, already irked. "We're not even that far north. You think this is the goddamn Arctic?" 

Remy shrugged and dumped his snow-dusted coat on the floor, like that was the perfect place for it. "I don't know where we are," he said. "I just followed you. Why'd you not stay down in Louisiana? We could've had a good time, just you and me. Instead we've got all this..." He gestured widely, vaguely, all freaking gloved jazz hands up in the air like that didn't look absurd. "Y'know. _Snow_." 

That was it. That was _really_ it. Logan grabbed his coat and he walked right out the door and left him there. He left on foot, not even just 'cause his truck and whatever the hell Remy must've used to get there were miles away, slogged through the snow and walked away. It made zero damn difference to him that the snow whipped against his face and smarted, bit at his cheeks, stung at his eyes. He had _not_ come all that way for Remy goddamn LeBeau to screw up his peace and quiet, except he pretty much already had. 

"Where in hell are you going?" Remy yelled after him, through the swirling goddamn snow, but Logan didn't look back. He skirted the edge of the frozen-up lake - sure, so Gambit was right that it was freaking cold - and he kept on going, who the hell knew where to, but he kept on going. The treeline wasn't far ahead and he was pretty sure he could lose him more effectively in the woods, not like the guy wasn't pretty easy to lose anywhere that wasn't neatly paved and lined with sidewalks, or so the cynic in Logan said. 

The ice cracked behind him; he knew the sound. The ice cracked and for a second Gambit yelled and then he was silent again and Logan's stomach lurched. Of all the dumb fucking things the cajun could've done, the jackass had thought hey, let's take a shortcut over the frigging _lake_ , and Logan turned and he ran, he sprinted, flat out, pushed hard as he could, knowing already he was going to regret it but slid the last few feet on his knees on the ice, felt it tear at his knees, came down hard on his chest at the damned hole Gambit had just busted through. The water down there was freezing, fucking _freezing_ , as he plunged his arm into it, and there was Gambit underneath with his soaked coat dragging him down. 

Logan grabbed for him, caught his collar and slipped off of it again, his pulse pounding sickly like he'd already lost him, like that was it already, like he was gone and that was that. He yelled - fuck knew what he yelled but he yelled anyway - got both hands in there and flailed like a fucking idiot and finally, finally, his fingers closed on Gambit's wrist and his shoulder and he hauled up hard, every muscle he had straining, roared out fucking loud with it till Remy was sprawled wet and limp on the ice. He spat up water. He shook. It was a goddamn miracle he hadn't drowned right then and there but jeez, he was freezing to the touch just like the water was. He pulled him up. He slung one of Remy's arms around his shoulders, he got one of his own around round Remy's waist, and he dragged his dumb Frenchified ass all the way back to the cabin. Remy was quiet the whole way. It didn't strike Logan as the good kind of quiet, either.

He needed warming up and Logan knew it. He slammed the door shut behind them both and he shoved him up against the back of it, and it was frigging dumb but what else was he going to do? His own hands were so cold he couldn't feel his fingers and so zippers and buttons were right out of the damn equation, so he popped out his claws and Remy watched him, his head lolling against the door, and it was almost like another time and another damn place except not at all as Logan sliced his coat from collar to hem. Remy watched him slice right through the front of his soaked shirt, watched him cut his jeans and pull them down, watched him deal with his underwear then go down on his knees and fumble like a jackass with his boots, and then Logan dumped him on his ass down by the fire, trembling like a fucking leaf, 'cause Gambit sure couldn't keep himself upright.

Logan stripped himself, too, real quick, got himself out of his wet clothes and dumped them in a heap with Remy's and he joined him, he spread himself out on top of him and pulled the sleeping bag up over the both of them, pushed Remy's stupid wet hair out of his stupid red-black eyes and felt him shivering so hard he might've been trying to buck him the hell back off. He got Remy up on his side with his back to the fire and pressed up to him bare chest to chest, wrapped his arms round him, tangled up his legs with his, rubbed his back like that might get some warmth back into him. Jesus Christ, he wasn't going to let the idiot expire out of sheer fucking stupidity, absolutely not, no way, but Remy just shuddered some more. 

"You die on me now and I swear to God, I'll tell everyone we know you liked wearing women's underwear," Logan told him, half-ragged, right by his ear. Gambit snorted like maybe he was amused by that, so he guessed it was a good sign, at least. 

Maybe he wasn't going to buy the farm right there on the rug after all. Maybe he'd caught him in time.

\---

They stayed that way for hours, or at least it felt like it. 

Logan let his eyes close and let his arms relax and eventually, sometime later, Gambit finally stopped shaking like a goddamn dashboard hula dancer. The fire dried them off and dried off the rug underneath them and the sleeping bag around them and Gambit's free arm moved, the one that wasn't stuck between the two of them and likely going to sleep pretty rapidly; he wrapped his arm around Logan's waist, pressed his palm to the small of Logan's back and he waited like he was expecting him to slap him away again. He didn't. Screw it. As long as neither of them talked, it was fine. It was even kinda nice. It was like it had been before, the times that they weren't right on the edge of fighting.

In the end, Logan moved first. He pulled himself away and he grabbed some dry clothes, got himself dressed in a pair of faded jeans and a beat-up old shirt and warmed a can of soup in a battered saucepan over the fire. He tossed Remy a pair of trackpants that finished maybe a third of the way up his shins and a shirt so broad across the chest it almost drowned him and Logan snickered to himself as he sat back down by the fire. Mercifully, Remy didn't say a single word as they sat there, eating the soup right out of the pan with a pair of wooden spoons like that wasn't ridiculously tough to do but whatever, forgetting to bring along cutlery wasn't close to the worst thing Logan had ever done. It wasn't even the worst thing he'd done that day.

They put their boots out by the fire to dry after they'd eaten and Logan shoved Remy's shredded clothes into a trash bag while Remy watched him from across the room. He watched him speculatively, inquisitively, as he was pulling on a pair of borrowed socks. 

"Do I really piss you off so much?" Remy asked, sitting there cross-legged on the rug. His hair was all over the damn place and so he raked it back from his forehead with his fingers wide like combs, making his borrowed shirt ride up over his borrowed pants and Logan didn't look, he really didn't look at the bare patch of skin at Remy's abdomen, the trail of dark hair leading down under his waistband. He knew every inch of the guy and he knew it well, knew it _intimately_ , much as he'd been trying to forget that, but there was still a stupid-ass lump in his throat as he looked at him. He snorted at himself and he turned away. 

"Well, it sure wasn't an invitation when I said I was going away for a while," he replied, like that was any kind of a real reply at all, and he started slinging his own mostly undamaged but lake-damp clothing over the backs of wooden chairs to dry. 

"Y'know, you could've just let me drown."

"Cajun, I wouldn't even leave Summers to drown," Logan replied, with a glance back over his shoulder. "And I like you a whole lot more than I like him."

Gambit smiled. He smiled pretty damn smugly. "So, how much do you like me?" he asked, cocky, just the same right then as he'd ever been, and Logan turned away again, aggravated, suddenly irritated. He shook his head sharply. 

"Don't push your luck," he said, almost grimacing. "Like I said, this sure as hell was _not_ an invitation." 

"You sure about that?" Remy asked.

"Yeah, I'm sure." 

" _How_ sure?"

"I'm pretty damn sure, Cajun. What are you getting at?" 

He heard Remy stand. He heard him move across the room, the ageing floorboards giving the occasional creak under his weight. He heard him but he didn't turn to look at him and then there he was, there his hands were, settling at Logan's hips as Logan flung his wet jeans over the back of a chair. He held on after, his palms pressed down tight to the bar his jeans were hanging over, and Remy's thumbs rubbed lightly at the bare skin there just above Logan's belt. He almost wished he'd taken the time to tuck his shirt in so he couldn't've done that. 

"There's a million places you could've gone where I couldn't've found you if I'd wanted to," Remy said, close by, too damn close, and then he stepped in even closer. He stepped right up against Logan's back and rested his chin on the crown of Logan's head like that didn't feel condescending at all, then he must've thought better of that 'cause he shifted and pressed his forehead there instead. He wrapped his arms around Logan's waist from behind him and Logan just stood there dumbly like he was the one who'd picked up the damn alien orb of enduring freaking silence this time. 

Problem was, the son of a bitch was right. He could've gone overseas, he thought. He could've gotten himself lost in Japan or someplace like that 'cause Remy LeBeau sure as hell didn't speak Japanese - sometimes Logan told him he barely spoke English, and Remy said that was better than Logan who barely spoke at all. He could've gone farther up north till Remy just couldn't've followed unless he'd enlisted the Blackbird and the rest of the X-Men and who the hell would've gone with him for that, just 'cause Wolverine had taken some impromptu vacation? He could've hidden his tracks, no matter where he'd gone, and kept an eye out for anyone following. Hell, he'd practically telegraphed his damn location and he knew better, he absolutely knew better, so in the end, standing there with the rise and fall of Remy's chest against his back, Remy's breath against the nape of his neck, he had to guess he'd done it on purpose. He had to guess he'd let him follow him. 

"Go home, Cajun," he said, his voice all twisted up and strained. 

"That's what you want?"

"Yeah, that's what I want." 

Remy didn't step back. One of his hands moved up instead, spreading wide over Logan's throat, and he held him there with it just lightly. The other hand went down, skimmed Logan's belly and pressed down over the zipper in his jeans. Logan closed his eyes. Logan squeezed his eyes closed, Logan squeezed at the back of the chair in front of him, Logan grimaced because frankly, hand-on-heart, he had no clue what to do. He could've pushed him away - that would've been easy. He could've yelled at him. He could've cursed at him and told him fuck no, he was wrong, just get out, just _get out_. Instead, he just tightened his grip on the back of the chair till it almost felt like it'd splinter right through the denim he'd spread there over it and jab straight up into his palms. It would've maybe served him right.

"Am I so different now I can talk again?" Remy asked. 

Logan nodded tightly. "Yeah," he said. "You really are." 

"So what, you're only interested when I'm mute?"

Logan bowed his head and nodded again. "Yeah," he said. "I guess that's about right." 

Remy sighed, but he still didn't move. He squeezed with that hand he'd pressed down over Logan's groin and Logan felt his cock stir with it, maybe against his will except probably not when it came down to it, and maybe that was the damn problem. 

Thinking about it, he'd always known Remy had been with guys sometimes 'cause he'd sometimes smelled them on him; it was even kinda fun to think about that sometimes, wondering what kind of guys the cajun went for, tall or short, big or skinny, brainy, brawny, someplace in between. Sometimes he wondered what they did, if it was all handjobs and blowjobs and rubbing himself between some guy's thighs till he got off, or if sometimes the cajun went all the way. He'd never imagined it, though, hell no, he'd never thought about who was on top, if and when it happened, if they did it on their backs or on their knees or up against a wall. He'd never thought about what it would've looked like, what it would've _felt_ like, fucking him, being fucked by him, shoving each other all around the room just 'cause they could, in him bent over a desk, the other way around on their knees in the shower. Hell no, he'd never imagined it. He'd never beat off to it, not even in the abstract. Or maybe that was all just one big pack of lies, but one thing was true, he thought: he'd never really wanted him, not really, not in real life, not outside of that damned abstract. He'd never wanted him until he couldn't say a word. 

He'd known he'd also been with guys himself sometimes, of course, he wasn't an idiot even if there were pieces every now and then he had trouble with remembering; usually he'd wound up regretting them a whole lot less than he did the women, too, though maybe that was just 'cause there were so many less guys than there were girls. _Usually_ , he regretted them less, but then there was Remy Le-fucking-Beau. 

He'd always known Remy found him attractive, but he'd just kind of assumed for years by then, since they'd met, that it was in the general way that Remy found more than half the people he ever met attractive. He knew he found Remy attractive, too, and even knew that wasn't some kind of crappy generalization 'cause Remy was attractive _to him_ , personally, at least he was physically, at least when he shut his big yap. It was so much easier to screw around with him when he couldn't speak. He didn't have to think about what they were doing or why they were doing it. When Remy couldn't speak, it was like it somehow wasn't really real.

Remy didn't move away; he squeezed and Logan felt himself stiffen against his palm, in spite of himself and in spite of every little bit of his goddamn better judgement screaming he should stop it. He should've pushed him away. He should've walked away. He didn't move either. 

"I can be quiet," Remy said, like a compromise, like an offer. Like he still wanted him. Like nothing had changed.

And that, with a sharp fucking wrench of his gut, was when Logan finally moved. He turned abruptly, and fuck knew what the expression on his face must've been like 'cause Remy looked at him just like he didn't know what he'd said to make him look like that, or like maybe he thought what he'd just said was just plain _wrong_ as an idea and it was, but it was wrong for all the wrong reasons. It was a visceral reaction that Logan had, like a goddamn knife in him, and he got two fistfuls of Remy's too-big borrowed shirt and just looked up at him, at the surprised-confused expression on his face, at his spooky-ass red eyes that didn't spook him at all. 

It'd been easier to screw around with Remy when he couldn't speak, sure, and maybe it would've been easy to tell him to shut up and keep quiet and it would've been just like it had been before, at least if he'd kept one hand clamped down over Remy's mouth 'cause the guy could _not_ be quiet even if he thought he could. But right then Logan got it, he really got it: it was easier when Remy couldn't speak 'cause that was the damn abstract. It was easier when he couldn't speak 'cause then Remy was barely like Remy at all. In that moment, right then, he knew he didn't want easy. He knew he didn't want abstract and no matter what he'd told himself, the goddamn orb hadn't ever been the start of things - it'd started with a kiss in the rec room and enough spilled apple juice to float a damn armada. He'd been lying to himself for months. He was as bad as the rest of them back at the mansion, pretending Remy was a different guy when he couldn't speak. He was as bad as the rest of them, acting like who Remy was was wrong just 'cause that seemed convenient. He couldn't have that. He wasn't some kind of a goddamn coward. He wasn't gonna ask the guy to change for him. Fuck, he didn't even really want him to. 

"Say that again," Logan said. 

Remy frowned at him. "I can be quiet?" 

"Yeah, don't be," Logan said. He meant it. And so he wasn't. 

They went back to the fire, to the scrunched-up rug and the sleeping bag that'd probably never be the same again, tugging their clothes back off along the way. Remy stretched out there naked, his hair fanned out every-damn-where, and Logan went down over him, pressed against him belly to thigh, propped up on his forearms. And damn, Remy talked the whole damn time, the whole way through it after that, chattered on in a kind of lust-hazed Cajun Franglais, and it was infuriating and it wasn't because jeez, it was like he was finally in bed with Remy LeBeau and not some angry, riled-up, Remy-shaped impostor. 

When Logan slicked himself up and pushed inside him, Remy got his fingers all tangled up in Logan's hair and whispered a thousand filthy things right up by his ear and Logan chuckled at them, half drunk on them, somehow more amused by the sound of Remy's voice right then than he'd ever thought he would be. He nuzzled at Remy's throat as Remy wrapped his legs around his waist and pulled him deeper and Jesus Christ, Remy groaned and arched against him and Logan growled with his teeth pressed up against his pulse. And then Remy was talking _again_ , rambling, something about this one time in Marseille like Logan had any idea when he'd been to Marseille and he'd met a guy he said looked a lot like Logan except French, as if _like Wolverine but French_ didn't sound kinda dumb when he said it out loud. And when they'd gone to bed, Remy said, conspiratorially, like he was telling him some kind of deep dark secret, he said as he pushed Logan down on his back and straddled his hips with his knees pushed real wide apart, as he settled down on the length of Logan's cock with his hands spread out on Logan's chest, as he pushed him up inside him, he'd been thinking about _him_. 

"You ever think about me?" Remy asked, pausing for a second, mid playful tweak of Logan's nipple.

Logan ran his hands up over Remy's thighs as he considered that. Logan ran his hands up over Remy's chest and then back down again, skimmed his collarbones and his sternum and the tight muscles in his abdomen that shifted with his quickened breath and Logan's touch, let the fingers of one hand curl up lightly around his cock. 

"Yeah, maybe once or twice," Logan admitted, as he braced his heels against the ground and pushed up just a fraction with his hips. 

Remy grinned, cocky, pleased, and pushed down against him just a little harder. 

"Maybe three times or four?"

Logan snorted. "You want me to stroke your ego or your cock?" he asked, and Remy laughed and squeezed Logan's hand around him. 

"You're a talented man, mon ami," he said, and cocked his head with a teasing little smile. "You can't do both?"

He did both. It was worth it for the mock-scandalized look on the cajun's face when he told him he'd usually imagined gagging him first.

And after, when they were both spent and hot and sticky by the fire and lying there naked, side by side, they glanced at each other, almost too close to focus. Remy blew him a kiss and Logan snickered and it was all so familiar and then not, too, like the first time and the fiftieth time both happening at the same damn time. It was the same but totally different. Hell, neither of them was angry for a start, and that had to count for something.

Right then, in the afterglow or whatever the hell it was, Logan guessed the strange thing wasn't so much the fact they'd ever done it in the first place. It was only strange that it'd taken them so damn long. 

\---

Five days later, they walked back into the school. 

"So, he found you," Jean said, outside the front door by her car with Bobby and One-Eye, groceries in hand. Life at Xavier's couldn't all be fun and games and psychic powers - sometimes it was mundane crap like buying canned peas for a bunch of teens.

Logan shrugged. "I guess he did," he replied, "'cause here I am. Big as life."

"And twice as ugly," Remy added, leaning hard on Logan's shoulders, so he punched him in the arm and Remy laughed and walked away, not even pretending like it hurt. Logan just shook his head 'cause frankly he figured it was a minor miracle they hadn't killed each other already, since that first day in the snow back up north of the border. Jean, on the other hand, gave them a look like they'd both grown a second head and that crap just wasn't in their particular mutations, and she turned and walked away with peas in hand. 

Remy sat himself down next to Logan at the dinner table that evening and kept leaning over to whisper things right by his ear that made Logan smirk and Remy snicker and everyone else had this look like they were missing the joke entirely, probably because they were. Remy sat himself down next to Logan in the rec room after, once they'd stuck a crappy action flick into the VHS, and Jubilee gave them both a knowing wink across the room when Logan's hand found Remy's thigh. And later, once the movie was done and Logan's beers were all mysteriously emptied out, they went up to Remy's room and they showered together, Remy bitching about how Logan accidentally got shampoo in his eyes and damn, even when the cajun went down on his knees under the spray and blew him, _enthusiastically_ , all tongue and teasing fingertips in places Logan wasn't even sure he'd known he had, somehow he didn't stop talking even then. Logan tossed a dry towel in Remy's face after and Remy whipped Logan's ass with it in mock-retribution, and then they went to bed. They still each had their own side of it, even then. 

A day turned to two and then a week, two weeks, three. Remy wound up on some crazy-ass jaunt down south with Storm and Logan spent ten days with the Avengers in Europe like that made any sense, then they met in New York and spent an evening double-teaming Stark with sheer fricking gleeful annoyance till he flashed 'em both a particularly rude gesture with both hands of his colorful Iron Man suit and ran away to his workshop. They slept in Logan's bed afterwards, both too damn tired to screw, Remy snoring like a frigging freight train but it turned out Logan was somehow pretty impervious. They drove back to the school together in the morning. They had the radio on, but that just made Remy talk louder; for once, Logan found he didn't care. 

Three weeks turned to four, six, ten. It was spring again before they knew it, no more goddamn snow except Bobby kept icing over the tennis courts even after the thaw 'cause the kids had developed a taste for skating and hell, who was gonna go outside to play tennis in March anyway? Logan smoked on the porch and kept an eye on them sometimes, and sometimes he pulled out skates and joined in a while, sometimes just 'cause it pissed off Scott, sometimes just 'cause with the blades on he was closer up to Remy's height. Remy seemed to like that. Logan told him he was giving him a complex, but Remy just clucked his tongue and smiled as he tucked his hands into Logan's back pockets while they kissed. Everyone already knew, not even 'cause there were so many damn psychics there, so it wasn't like they had to be real coy about it. Everyone knew when they were together, and every time they weren't. Kitty called it _friends with benefits_ and even if he'd felt inclined to discuss it, Logan didn't know if it would've even been right to disagree. 

Ten weeks turned to twelve, three full months, four. Remy got himself injured on a job and went pretty much stir crazy in the mansion after, bedridden for a week and then housebound for two more after that. Logan slept the first two nights wound up and restless in a crappy hard-backed chair in the damn infirmary while Remy was still unconscious, not like he's admitted it since, not more than once or twice though he knows Remy knows. They fought on the fourth day and he didn't go back after that, at least he said he didn't, not except for the times he was just passing by, for damn sure not there to see Gambit. Then they made up on the twelfth day and Logan slept the night spooned up behind him, wondering what the fuck it was all about except hell, fucking hell, if Remy'd bought the farm out there he knew he'd've never forgiven him. 

Four months turned to five, then six. Sometimes they were thick as thieves and sometimes they couldn't stand to be in the same room. Sometimes all Logan wanted in the whole damn world was for Remy LeBeau to shut the fuck up; sometimes he stopped his mouth with his own and sometimes he just got up and walked away. Some nights they slept in the same bed and some nights they didn't. Some nights they argued and it took a day or maybe a couple till they were back on speaking terms after, let alone anything else. It was messy. It sure as hell wasn't easy. But in the end Logan would knock on Remy's door or he'd drag him down into the Danger Room and that was that. It was always on Logan's terms. Somehow it seemed easier that way; that should've rung the damn alarm.

Six months turned to seven, eight, then nine - over a year since the crap with the orb had started 'cause Gambit didn't know how to keep his hands to himself. Logan spent a while in Japan, just a couple of weeks, maybe three, and found himself on the damn phone with the cajun at 3am like somehow that was a thing they did now. Gambit spent two weeks down in New Orleans and when Logan joined him there was some ridiculous crap with Victor Von fucking Doom of all the people and they both nearly bit the big one, who the hell even knew how they didn't. They wound up in some seedy-ass hotel room after, fucking half-clothed and angry in the flickering light of a neon sign outside the paper-thin curtains at the window that made Logan's eyes ache, bent over a desk so beat up and splintered their hands almost bled. Logan wrapped his arms around Remy's waist when they were done, when they were calmer, when they were catching their breath, one prickly cheek to Remy's back and still pushed up inside him, and Remy chuckled half-bitterly into his hands. 

"I missed you too, cher," Remy said, sarcastic, his voice muffled but Logan still heard him and he was likely meant to. He told himself he didn't have the energy left in him for that conversation; they headed to the bed with its crappy over-starched sheets instead.

It didn't seem long till it'd been a year and it was cold enough outside again to see their breath in the air, and Bobby icing up the tennis courts so everyone could skate didn't seem weird quite the way it had done in the summer. And when Logan went north again, not the same crappy cabin but one not too much unlike it, it almost seemed like tradition that Remy followed up close after. It almost felt like Logan had been waiting for it, whatever the hell that meant, or maybe he'd been waiting for _him_. There were conversations they'd never had. They fought a whole lot more than they needed to. Remy never made the first move; Logan sometimes kinda hoped he would, and he thinks sometimes it would've been a whole lot easier if he'd just bit the bullet and fucking _said so_.

"Next time, how about you find us someplace with a hot tub?" Remy said, when he blustered through the door in a cloud of snow. 

"Next time, how about you don't just write your own damn invitation?" Logan replied, but there was no bite to it, not really, not even a bit, maybe 'cause he'd been expecting him, or at least pretended he hadn't been. Remy grinned. Logan almost smiled right back in spite of himself. 

They cooked dinner that night over a camp stove and ate off of plates at the table like civilized people instead of out of a pan on the floor by the fire, real cutlery this time 'cause Logan hadn't managed to forget it though maybe he felt a fraction nostalgic for the damn awkward wooden spoons. They played cards at the table there afterwards, the dirty dishes just shoved aside for later, and Remy dealt like that was somehow likely to be fair even if he promised not to cheat; Logan lost, but it was tough to say if that was 'cause Remy had fast hands or skill or luck. They shifted to the couch after that, in front of the fire, and Logan let his head rest back against the cushions. Logan rested one hand on Remy's thigh, fingertips playing idly at the inseam of his jeans, or maybe not quite idly. Remy let him. 

"We're friends, yes?" Remy said, a while later, who knew how long since Logan had lost track, his voice the only sound in the place besides the crackling fire. Logan didn't mind the silence being broken.

"Well, you keep calling me your _ami_ ," Logan replied, his eyes still on the flames there in the fireplace, "and I ain't objected to it lately."

"And we're lovers, yes?" Remy said. "When it suits you."

Logan shrugged. "If that's what you wanna call it, sure," he replied.

"So, what when it suits _me_?"

Logan glanced at him just for a moment, sidelong, his gaze flickering over Remy's unreadable face, then he turned back to the fire. 

"When does it suit you?" he asked. 

"You know. Sometimes."

"What times are those?"

Remy paused. "What if I said _all the time_?"

Logan turned to him then, one arm slung over the back of the couch with his brows raised, half amused and half not because that was how Gambit looked, too. 

"You saying you wanna be my boyfriend, Cajun?" Logan asked.

Remy grinned, broadly, almost cocky with it except maybe just not quite and that _not quite_ twisted tight at Logan's gut.

"What if I do?" he said. 

Logan shifted. He could've walked away, he guesses, and just left him sitting there like an ass, grabbed his coat and taken off out in the snow where Remy really shouldn't've followed except that hadn't exactly stopped him the last time, and maybe for a second he thought about it 'cause it would've been a whole lot easier, that was for sure. He could've laughed it off, too, said something about how he wouldn't dare deprive the women of the world of Gambit's many charms or how he was pretty sure he was too damn old himself to be considered real _boy_ friend material. But screw it, he wasn't looking for the easy option. Maybe he rolled his eyes at himself when he thought about it, but it wasn't like there'd been anyone else since that first time with Gambit. It wasn't like he was looking for friends with benefits. 

He shifted and he straddled Remy's thighs and he sat himself down right there on his lap. He tangled his fingers up in Remy's stupid red-brown hair and made himself comfortable and Remy looked up at him with his hands slowly, maybe a fraction cautiously, coming up to Logan's waist, his thumbs rubbing bare skin above the waistband of his jeans. Logan couldn't even pretend he wished he'd tucked his shirt in; he had a hard time not just taking the damn thing off. 

"Keep talking," Logan said, with a hint of a smile. 

So Remy did, with a grin that almost looked relieved. Frankly, he's barely stopped since.

\---

It's been two years now since then. They're still going strong.

Neither one of them's officially given up their room at the school and it bugs the crap out of them sometimes, when Gambit's lost a goddamn glove or Logan's put his wallet down someplace and they've got two rooms to search instead of one, but mostly it's convenient. When they get sick of each other - it's frigging inevitable sometimes, with who they are - they sleep in separate beds; the rest of the time, they've got a choice of location.

They still train together pretty much every other day, just as much 'cause they just get their kicks from fighting as to keep their edges sharp. They still work together, too, an X or two on their working clothes 'cause while maybe teamwork's not exactly their forte, they'd both rather that than any of the alternatives. They've still got each other's back and they still save each other's hides and sometimes they make out after just 'cause they like the feel of it; sometimes it's that or start a fist fight neither of them'd feel inclined to lose. It's complicated. It's sure as hell not easy. But these days Logan wouldn't have it any other way. 

A couple of months ago, Remy got himself hexed again, like that was par for the damn course and in a way, at least for him, it was. He lost his voice again - _again_ , like a frigging cliché - and Logan told him once was bad enough but twice just looked damned careless. Remy scowled. Logan smirked. They went home. 

Back at the mansion, though, no one seemed perturbed by it, maybe just 'cause this time the hex hadn't made him talk total nonsense, it'd just made it so he couldn't talk at all, or maybe 'cause it wasn't like they hadn't all been there before, with the kind of crap only Gambit ever seemed to get himself into. No one was in a hurry to get the hex reversed. Maybe they thought that was what he deserved for pissing off witches or maybe the silence was some kind of relief, who the hell knew. Maybe it just didn't seem important in the scheme of things, 'cause truth be told they did have other, Magneto-related concerns. Maybe they all thought he should just learn how to deal, and not just deal cards. Maybe they were all back on that dumbass kick of forced self-discovery - maybe they thought he should use the time to get in touch with the _real_ him, the one they all thought there must be in hidden him somewhere, buried down real deep inside. 

And okay, so maybe Logan had some fun with it. Maybe he talked through the damn movie himself one night just to see how Gambit reacted to it - he didn't react too well. Maybe he stripped him naked and teased him with his fingers and his tongue till he arched and writhed and he would've screamed out loud if he could've. But that didn't mean he didn't get it, 'cause sometimes it's like Logan's the only one who does. After a couple of days, he took him to a girl he knew and got him fixed back right as rain 'cause he gets it, he really does.

The fact is, Remy's not deep. He likes to flirt and he likes to fight; his essential Remyness or whatever the hell they all wanted to call it is right there for everyone to see and not hidden away somewhere inside like all it needs to be discovered is a little quiet time-out. Silence has never added something to him - it only takes something away.

The first time, it was an accident - it was all apple juice and ruined cards just so Gambit would shut the fuck up for once. The second time was accidental, too - with that frigging shriek-ray and Remy's inability to keep his idiot mouth closed till all Logan could think to do was kiss him, like that wasn't a dumbass idea on a gargantuan scale. The third time, he still didn't mean it, sure, but there was a point back there, somewhere, someplace in the last few years, when he had to stop calling the whole thing an accident. At some point, he thinks he must've made a choice; Remy tells him he made the choice before the accidents even began and hell, who knows, maybe he's right. He usually is, not that Logan's gonna tell him so. 

Tonight, it's no damn accident. Tonight, Logan made a choice. Remy's eyes fucking burn as Logan pushes into him and he curses real pretty as he wraps one long leg round Logan's waist. Logan tangles their fingers together above Remy's head, presses them into the pillows and he fucks him slowly, so slow it makes his fricking blood boil, it makes his spine tingle, it makes his hairs all stand on end. They've been apart a month, Logan trekking round South American jungles with Kitty for fuck only knows what reason and Remy in a swimsuit in the goddamn Caribbean like that crap's ever been hard work, but now here they are, home again, 'cause somehow home's a school in Westchester and a bunch of total jackasses they don't like most times but that doesn't matter 'cause they're family. Even Jean. Even Rogue. Even frigging Scott. 

Tonight, it's no accident. Remy's muscles strain taut and Logan's teeth are on edge and when they come, barely muffling groans, the fact it's been a month just makes it better. 

"I missed you too, cher," Remy says after, sprawling half on top of him like a Gambit-shaped quilt. There's a teasing smile on his face and Logan snorts and flicks him in the forehead, like that ever puts him off. Then he wraps his arms round Remy's waist and holds him there; he likes the weight of him like that, warm and solid and pressed against him, anchoring him down, and Remy knows it all too well. He's been getting to know all Logan's secrets, whether he wants him to or not. He's been kinda surprised to find he mostly wants him to.

"Don't go getting sentimental on me, Cajun," Logan says, but he's smiling, too. 

The first time was an accident. But right now, as Remy kisses him, you couldn't pay him enough to take it back. 

The first time was an accident, sure. But but he'd do it all over again.


End file.
